Hyperlipidemia and diabetes are considered as the highest risk factor of atherosclerosis, and treatment of obesity is believed to improve these conditions. Obesity treatment is normally based on dietetic treatment. However, the development of a medicament or a health food has been desired that reduces body weight and visceral fat levels without decrease of food consumption.
An anion exchange resin, which is known as a cholesterol lowering agent including colestimide as a typical example (trade name: Cholebine, Mitsubishi Pharma Corporation), is known to adsorb bile acids in the intestine to excrete the acids into feces, and inhibits reabsorption of the bile acids from the intestine. Accordingly, in the liver, conversion of cholesterol to bile acids (catabolism of cholesterol) is promoted, and as a result, blood LDL cholesterol is uptaken into the liver to supply cholesterol as a raw material, whereby blood cholesterol levels are decreased in humans and various animals. Particularly as for colestimide, it has been reported that colestimide exhibits high adsorption ability to cholic acid, as well as to all the constitutive lipids in bile acid-lipid complex micelles consisting of cholic acid, oleic acid, monooleyl glycerol, phospholipid (lecithin+lisolecithin), and cholesterol [Pharmacology and Therapy (Yakuri-to-chiryo), 24 (Suppl. 4): 601, 1996].
As for the aforementioned Cholebine, the resin was described as applicable to dieting on pages 150 to 153 and 186 to 189 in “Brilliant postmenopausal life—the secret of youthfulness: An advise of hormonotherapy” (Oct. 20, 2000, Kabushiki Kaisha Maeda Shuppan). Specifically, this report describes that during the course of dietetic treatment, some people fail dieting because they eat between meals and cannot decrease food consumption, but they can reduce their weight by the use of Cholebine. However, what is described in the article is a method to perform dieting by taking Cholebine before a meal to allow the resin to swell up in the stomach so as to maintain the feeling of fullness in the stomach, which results in the decrease of food consumption. In other words, the report merely describes that food consumption is decreased by utilizing the feeling of fullness achieved by Cholebine, so as to reduce body weight. As for as the inventors are aware, no report has been made on reduction of body weight and/or visceral fat levels without decrease of food consumption, as intended by the present invention.
Accordingly, an object of the present invention is to provide a novel method for reducing body weight and/or visceral fat levels without decrease of food consumption.